


#NewProfilePic

by missgeevious



Category: Schitt's Creek (TV) RPF
Genre: Fluff, I mean that's it really, M/M, SO FLUFFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24530470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missgeevious/pseuds/missgeevious
Summary: Noah wants to know why Dan's had the same Twitter profile picture for such a long time.
Relationships: Dan Levy/Noah Reid
Comments: 32
Kudos: 70





	#NewProfilePic

Dan sighs, slouches a little more into his director’s chair and props his head on one hand, one leg crossed over the other. God, he’s tired. It has been a long day already and they are only about halfway through the shooting schedule. Maybe he can get comfortable enough to doze a little before they start filming again. Just as he closes his eyes, he hears Noah chuckle somewhere behind him and an involuntary smile curls one side of his mouth. Noah’s happiness is always contagious. Whether it’s a smile, or a full-throated laugh, or a soft little giggle, Dan finds himself mirroring it.

“Exactly how old is this Twitter profile picture, Dan?” Noah says.

Dan snorts. “Are you just now noticing it for the first time?”

“Ah, you know…” Dan can hear the shrug in his voice. 

Dan does know. Noah’s relationship with social media is tenuous at best. He must be pretty bored if he is scrolling through Twitter. 

“Seriously, dude, this looks  _ old _ .”

“Mmmm,” Dan says without opening his eyes. “It is. I’ve only ever had the one profile picture.”

Noah is quiet for a second and then says, “You joined Twitter in May 2009. That’s a long time to keep the same profile picture, isn’t it?”

Dan hums again noncommittally, hoping Noah will drop it. 

“So why that picture?”

Dan sighs. Noah isn’t going to drop it. He’s like a terrier once he gets his teeth into something. A cute, happy terrier— adorable, really— but a terrier all the same. Dan sits up and twists around in the chair to face him, being sure to scan the area to see if anyone else is in eavesdropping distance. He props an elbow on the back of the chair and settles in to tell Noah the story. “It was taken on the beach in the Gulf of Mexico during spring break when I was twenty-six. Tony and I and some friends all went down together. One night we took some golf carts out for a drive along the beach. I had a little too much to drink that night.” He pauses, remembering the warm breeze and the taste of rum and the swoop in his stomach every time Tony smiled at him. “It was a good night. I felt great. I was so happy and so in love. It was perfect.”

Noah’s faint eyebrows shoot up and he smiles but doesn’t interrupt.

“Tony and I had been together a couple of months at that point. I was head over heels for him.”

This time the pause is long enough that Noah thinks he’s finished. “Sounds like a great memory. I’d want to keep a photographic reminder of feeling that way, too.”

Dan snorts. “No.”

“No?”

“No.” Dan feels his throat tighten so he clears it a couple of times quickly. He is absolutely not going to let telling this story make him cry. “Tony broke up with me when we got home. He told me that we weren’t right for each other, that he had big dreams and needed someone with more ambition, someone who was  _ going places _ .” He makes sarcastic air quotes around the last two words and rolls his eyes.

“What a dick.” Noah sounds angry. Dan smiles and tries to hold on to the warm feeling it gives him.

“Indeed. I didn’t take it… well. That’s a bit of an understatement. It was a bad time. Anyway, when I joined Twitter a few weeks later I decided to use that picture for my profile to remind me— I guess to inspire me, really.”

“The best revenge is a life well-lived?” Noah offers.

“Exactly. And look at me now.” Dan waves a hand over himself and smirks. “I have my own show and it’s a success.  _ I’m _ a success. He can fuck all the way off.”

Noah throws back his head and laughs. “Yes, he can!  _ All _ the way off! I bet he sees you now and has regrets. So many regrets!”

Dan smiles but shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter. I deserve to find the person who will love me whether I’m a success or not. I deserved it then, too. I just didn’t know it yet.” 

“Yes,” Noah says quietly. “You did. And you do.” Then he adds even more softly, “I hope someday you feel that way again— the happy and in love part, I mean.” Then, sensing things have gotten too serious, he says, “Maybe you’ll even get a new profile picture out of it.”

Dan laughs lightly but stares at the floor, afraid there might be too much on his face if he looks Noah in the eye right now. 

“Hey,” Noah says. “I just realized… do you know what I was doing at the same time you were on that beach, drunk driving golf carts?”

Dan shakes his head.

“Well, first of all, I was a young and sweet twenty-two years old so, you know, much younger than you.”

“You were never sweet. You were a hellion. I’ve heard enough stories, Mr. Alive ‘til Twenty-Five.” He pretends to glare at him. “Also, it’s a four-year age difference. Get over it.”

Noah giggles, pleased with himself, and then continues, “I was filming Score. Oh, the stories I could tell you about  _ that.” _

Dan sits up straight and grins. “Oh, yes, please, you have to—” Suddenly he notices Emily approaching and taking a picture of him with her phone. 

“Sorry,” she says quickly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. You looked like you were having so much fun.” She tilts the camera toward Dan so he can see. “Cute, right?”

He can feel his cheeks heating up as he looks at the picture. His face definitely says too much. Oh, god.

“Mmm,” he says to Emily. “Very cute.” He stands up and stretches. “I should go check on things.” As he walks away he goes for breezy and casual and says, “You should send me a copy of that, Em.” He hopes she’ll remember to do it. He wants a copy of that picture very much.

********************

That night he stares at the picture of himself that Emily took, finger hovering over the “Apply” button on Twitter. Fuck it, he thinks, and presses it. He puts his phone down and then jumps up to pace the room, shaking his hands and grinning, stomach swooping nervously.  _ Fuck. What have I done? _

********************

Noah’s phone dings with an alert that Dan’s posted something. He opens the tweet.

#NewProfilePic

He recognizes it as the picture that Emily took earlier that day, of Dan looking at him while the two of them talked... 

He jumps up out of his chair and claps a hand over his heart, which is suddenly trying to burst out of his chest. “Holy shit!” 

He stares at the picture, grinning, adrenaline making his blood feel electric.  _ Holy shit. _

He gives the tweet a heart. _His_ heart, actually. 

Then he opens his text chain with Dan and types  _ Can I come over? _

**Author's Note:**

> NeelyO made me do it. 
> 
> thegrayness and this-is-not-nothing helped.


End file.
